VOLUNTEER RESPONSIBILITIES

FOR EVERYONE

Attend Leadership Weekend. If you can possibly do so, come to Williams for Leadership Weekend, held each year in September. Here you can meet members of your team and other alumni, reacquaint yourself with Williams and, most importantly, get charged up about the Alumni Fund. When you interact with fellow alumni, walk the campus and revisit familiar sites, we guarantee you’ll get excited. For most volunteers, the expenses of coming to the weekend should be tax-deductible.

If you need financial help to come to Leadership Weekend, contact Director of Annual Giving Jim Trapp at 413-597-4779 or James.H.Trapp@williams.edu. There are limited resources available to bring class agents to campus for Leadership Weekend.

Stay informed about the College. Knowledge is power. The more you know about Williams and higher education, the easier your job will be. Read The Williams Campaign prospectus, and become conversant with the College’s strategic initiatives supported by the Campaign. Stay informed about the Alumni Fund, current issues, priorities and plans of the trustees and administrators, and higher education in general.

Read this handbook, the regular Progress Reports from the Alumni Fund office (monthly during the drive), Eph Notes, the Alumni Review, Williams online student news publications, and the education sections of various newspapers. And check out the College’s Web site – www.williams.edu – where a wealth of information awaits. A subscription to the Williams Record may be obtained by e-mail: subscriptions@record.williams.edu or 413-597-2400 or 413-597-2595. You can also read the Record online at www.williamsrecord.com.

Lead by example. Never ask someone for a gift until you’ve made one yourself. Think about your role in The Williams Campaign. Start thinking and planning now for your reunion year commitment to the Campaign through the Alumni Fund. Make sure that your own gift or pledge is in before the official kick-off date, and that you feel really good about the amount of your gift before you begin your calls. By doing this, you will be asking from a position of strength, able to talk about your own decision, and confident in asking your assigned classmates to join you in supporting Williams.

Thank people for their gifts. Your classmates could have directed their contributions to 1,001 other worthy causes, but they chose to give to Williams and you should lead the way in thanking them. Every gift deserves a personal thank you – ideally a handwritten note. When you see on your ledger report that one of your contacts has sent in a gift, send a thank-you note. This is the right thing to do and it solidifies the relationship between that donor and Williams.

Keep in touch. Let your Alumni Fund teammates hear from you. The most unsettling situation for a head agent is having an associate agent seemingly drop off the face of the earth. Most unsettling for Williams staff is having a head agent apparently captured by aliens and held incommunicado at an undisclosed location. You are a crucial part of your class team – stay in touch! Your Alumni Fund team e-mail list server, an easy way to send one e-mail to your entire team, makes keeping in contact very easy. To use your team list server, address your message to: AGENTSXX-L@williams.edu. (XX is your class year.)

Reports. The Alumni Fund office will send you biographical information and statistical reports to help you do your job. Ledger and non-donor reports are sent regularly during the Fund to update you on who has or has not made a gift.

Reports online. You may view your ledger and non-donor reports online at http://www.williams.edu/ alumni/volunteer/ (click on “My Reports”). These reports are password protected; your username and password will be enclosed in your supply packet or you can call the Alumni Fund office for this information.

• The ledgers are updated each evening with a report on which members of your class have made gifts.
• Contact information for your non-donors may be viewed on the non-donor report.
• Also available online are the class standings. Check them to see how your class – and the Fund – is doing.

Confidentially speaking. The information in Alumni Fund reports is confidential. The sole purpose of this information is to help you with your work for Williams. Please hold this information in confidence. Do not leave it where someone else can see it, do not discuss it with others, and do not use it for non-Alumni Fund purposes. Shred these documents or return them to the Alumni Fund office when you finish your work.

“Mayday! Mayday!” If for some reason you cannot fulfill your Alumni Fund duties, no one expects you to go down with the ship. We understand that careers and personal lives sometimes take unexpected turns. If this happens to you, let your class agent know as soon as you realize that you have to re-juggle your priorities. The classmates you are responsible for can be assigned to someone else. We promise not to rip off your epaulets at your next reunion and drum you out of the Williams Legion of Honor. Some of our best fund raisers take some time off for one reason or another. They come back when they can and do a great job from then on.

Have fun! Don’t approach your Alumni Fund work with a resigned attitude of “Oh, well, someone has to do it.” Take time to enjoy talking to your classmates about their lives and what is happening in their part of the world. These are interesting people who have a lot in common with you – you both attended a superb college! Use your Alumni Fund duties as a way of connecting with old friends or to make friends of people who so far have been just acquaintances. People may not always say so, but in their heart of hearts they appreciate the work you are doing to help keep Williams strong.

FOR ASSOCIATE AGENTS

Help us keep track of your classmates. People change jobs and move. Please pass along all changes in address, phone, FAX, and e-mail for home and business for yourself and classmates. Changes can be called in to Alumni Relations at 413-597-4057 or e-mailed to alumni.office@williams.edu.
Always mention your class year when sending in changes.

You can be very helpful to your class secretary, as well, by informing him or her about news you gather from your contacts with your classmates. Weddings, births, new jobs, and “sightings,” make interesting material for class notes – the most closely read section of the Alumni Review. Your class secretary’s email address is XXXXsecretary@alumni.williams.edu (substitute your class year for “XXXX”).

Your team’s success depends on your success. The calls you make and the notes and letters you send could be the difference in whether or not your class reaches its goals. Your personal touch is why you were chosen for this important task. Take advantage of the expertise present among your team members and Alumni Fund staff. If you have questions, contact your class agent or your Alumni Fund staff member at 413-597-4153 or 888-EPH(374)-8110 or annual.giving@williams.edu. Always include your class year when communicating with the Alumni Fund office.

FOR HEAD AGENTS

You are the head honcho, the big kahuna, and the Number One Fund Raiser for your class. You will put together and manage the most effective team possible to contact members of your class and persuade them to give to the Alumni Fund. Recruit as many associate agents as you can effectively manage. Don’t enlist only the people you know; in order to appeal to everyone, your team should reflect the diversity and varied interests of your class.

Work with the Alumni Fund office to set the goals and strategy for your class. Based on those initial plans, you will develop the timetable and tasks of your campaign. You decide when and how many appeal letters or postcards will be sent, and who will write them – you or someone you delegate. You will determine whether these appeals will be sent directly from the College or shipped to associate agents so that they can add personal notes. You will decide how best to handle leadership gifts, non-donors, and alumni living abroad. The amount of dollars raised and the number of classmates who give each year are directly related to your planning and follow-through.

Appoint a Leadership Gifts Chair. This is one of the most important decisions you will make. Work with your Leadership Gifts Chair and your Alumni Fund Development Officer to identify the 20% or so of your class who have the potential to give at the leadership level. Solicit these donors in the very early stages of the Fund. These classmates will make your total rise quickly, and the closer you get to your goal, the easier it will be to obtain gifts from everyone else.

Assign each member of your class to an associate agent. Take the time to do this thoughtfully. The “chemistry” present in a visit or phone call is critical to the success of your class. The assignments you make will have a great deal to do with the effectiveness of your effort. Make sure that these assignments make sense and that your associates are comfortable with the individuals they will contact. If they aren’t, shift things around until the pieces of this puzzle fit.

Solicit Alumni Fund gifts early from your associate agents and class officers before you ask the rest of the class. First of all, make your own gift. Then solicit your associate agents by phone to show them how it works. Demonstrate to them that having made a gift makes it easier to ask others. The strongest classes are those with 100% participation from the Associate Agent team and those that receive solid Alumni Fund support from their class officers.

Motivate and cheer on your team. Your associate agents should feel accountable to you for their performance, and you should keep in contact with them. Make sure they know their material and are familiar with current issues, priorities, and plans of the trustees and administration. If they are new, let them practice making a phone call by calling you. Praise them for their successes, and share those successes with the entire team. Maintain frequent communication with your team through personal calls, email and conference calls.

Delegate. Trying to do too much by yourself never works and is a guaranteed formula for burnout. Doing it all is no fun, either.

Maintain the links from your classmates to the College. Your team members are your class’s primary representatives for the Alumni Fund, and a vital communications link between your class and the College. By relaying and sharing news with Williams as well as with your class secretary, you help build a class network and relationships with the College that last for many years.

Use your team listserver to send a
group e-mail to your associate agents:
AgentsXX-L@williams.edu
(XX = your class year)

FOR VICE CHAIRS

Serve for three years. Seven new vice chairs are appointed annually to replace those whose terms have expired. Should a vice chair be unable to complete his or her term, a replacement is appointed to complete that term. That vice chair is then eligible to serve his or her own three-year term.

Attend vice chair meetings. Vice chairs of the Alumni Fund gather in September, January, and April with additional meetings called as needed. Participation in person at these meetings is expected and an important component of the responsibilities of each vice chair. If that is not possible, participation by conference call is offered. If a vice chair does not participate in either of these ways and misses two consecutive meetings, the Governance Committee will review that vice chair’s continued tenure on the committee. Subcommittees may be formed with meetings called as needed and are often conducted through conference calls. Vice chairs are invited and encouraged to attend meetings of the Executive Committee of the Society of Alumni, which coincide with the September and April vice chair meetings on campus.

Serve as an advisory body to Alumni Fund staff. Assist with strategic planning, communication strategies, training and recruiting programs, setting information and reporting priorities, and other areas relating to the long-term vitality of the Alumni Fund.

Support the class agent teams. Vice chairs with specific class assignments help to recruit, train, motivate, and advise agents throughout the year and intercede as appropriate with agents or classes in difficulty.

Committee Work: Vice chairs may also serve on one or more subcommittees which include:

• Governance – Periodically reviews VC and chair terms and makes recommendations for changes as necessary. Nominates vice chairs, the senior vice, and the chair of the Alumni Fund.
• Best Practices for Head Agents – Identify and recommend the best strategies for increasing participation and donor retention.
• Stewardship – Reviews and recommends recognition strategies for stewardship of leadership donors, donors with consistent participation, and Alumni Fund volunteers.
• Technology – Looks at the technology tools available to the general body of alumni and alumni volunteers. On occasion may work with the Director of Information Systems to review and test new reports and changes to current reports before they are made live to the entire volunteer constituency.

Participate in the solicitation of potential leadership donors to the Alumni Fund. Solicit gifts from the head agents in assigned classes.

Represent the Alumni Fund to our greater alumni community. Communicate the opinions and interests of the alumni to the College and share the College’s priorities and directions with alumni. Stay informed as to the current issues and events on campus in order to keep agents and other alumni informed. Make it a priority to visit www.williams.edu regularly.